Six days since I survived CES 2007, and for anyone who's ever been to CES will know that "survived" is the right word. Actually, I was only there for two show days--I don't know how anybody can handle all four. Just a few observations from my visit...

There is SO MUCH branding barraging you there that it loses its effect. I don't think I'd spend money for brand signage. So what if your brand is on top of a cab... there are a lot of cabs there! Seems like a wasted marketing dollar.

At most tradeshows, we try to help our clients attract attendees from the aisle into their booth. At CES, it's so huge that the challenge is helping attendees even FIND your booth. Maybe it would make sense to hire some young "brand advocates" to act as tour guides to get people from the front door to your booth.

I went to the much-touted Sony booth, where they had set up a big movie theater. I got to see an "exclusive" extended preview of the next Spiderman flick. Really fun stuff, but they wasted a great opportunity to market to us. As about 200 people checked their cameras & cellphones at the door and made their way into the theater seats, I sat for about 15 minutes with nothing on the screen. No audio, no picture. Wasted opportunity.

The Gibson Guitar tent outside the main exhibit space was the best thing I saw. They had a stage with different bands playing, free Hershey bars with a Gibson branded wrapper, guitar giveaways and an area where people were competing with the video game called Guitar Hero. It was fun.

Were you at CES? What did you like?